While broadband technologies such as cable modem, digital subscriber line (DSL) and others have enjoyed market growth, a significant proportion of consumers still rely upon dial-up connections over the public switched telephone network (PSTN) to access the Internet and other networks. Dial-up modem connections retain the advantages of low cost, standardized hardware and protocols, near-universal accessibility and throughput that remains sufficient for many desired services, including email, instant messaging and others.
Commercial Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and others have therefore continued to solicit and provision dial-up users. The provisioning of dial-up service may involve deploying dial-up paths which direct the user's incoming modem call to the provider via a dedicated point-to-point protocol (PPP) connection. As illustrated in FIG. 1, this may conventionally involve receiving incoming calls over the PSTN via the local switch of a local exchange carrier or other telephone service provider. The dial-up modem call may be received in a modem bank, remote access server (RSA) or other terminal equipment which synchronizes with the consumer's modem while password, username or other information is authenticated.
Once connected into the data transport network, the user's call may be routed by domain name, IP address or other data for delivery to an associated Web site or other destination. However, this type of hardware provisioning for dial-up service has disadvantages.
For one, those consumers who continue to rely upon dial-up connections for access to the Internet and other networks may still desire faster upload and download times, as well as improved overall responsiveness in their browsing experience. Companies deploying PPP dial-up access could, and some commercially may, introduce compression servers or other enhancements in the data path toward that purpose. However, since the transport layer employed is point-to-point, in general the dial-up lines and their associated servers and routers must be dedicated to the individual Internet service providers providing the service. Various telephone numbers for modem access to a provider may for instance all be forced to the same data path.
Hardwiring the network edge for specific providers also limits the flexibility of the deployer, owner or operator of that hardware, since no reuse or multiplexing is practical or possible. This among other things makes the cost or amortization of that equipment greater, since it can not be shared among providers or others. Other problems exist.